An unofficial news blog for Neil Young fans from Thrasher's Wheat with concert and album updates, reviews, analysis, and other Rock & Roll ramblings. Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1996.

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I don't know where you have been yesterday, but the show was AWESOME and the sound was really great, at least about 10 meters away from the stage...yea it was extremly hot, but so was the Horse!! A few of my personal highlights of the full moon show yesterday:

I didn't know that LAOL can be sooo powerfull! WOW what a great song for the Horse!

Powderfinger: giant solo when Neil played the ending riff of the verse/solo and I thought the next verse might come, but Neil startet again and again with the solo! GREAT

AWESOME Walk like a Giant...not to describe!!

Strange, very intense harp solo while HOG...really cool!

Really rockin end of the show with stunning performances of Sedan, Surfer Joe & Mr. Soul.

And then the absolute highlight of the show: An enormous FULL MOON HURRICANE! One of the greatest versions I ever heard! And I have MANY bootlegs :D Solo-verse 1 - solo - verse 2 - solo - verse 1 and not until then the extremly distorted feedback-part of the hurricane blew out of Old Black... WHAT A SOUND! On the one hand the everlasting melodic solos, on the other hand the heavy feedback storm - ah - hurricane!Legendary when Neil pointed at me and the Poster I held saying "Full Moon Hurricane" when they left the stage. Thank you very much for playing the Hurricane, Neil!

I was there last night. Flew into Germany a few days ago from Beijing and my friend from Taipei. I thought that the opening band were pretty good, very Pink Floyd but would like to hear them again.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse were out of this world. The long guitar solos were amazing, and Neil walked around the stage like an 18 year old guitar genius and not at all looking like his 67 years. I was utterly amazed by his energy, and the sound.

When Hurricane was played as the final song, tears were rolling down my cheeks in the knowledge that maybe this is the one and only time I'll get to see Neil with Crazy Horse (as they have suggested that maybe this is their last tour). I saw the 'Full Moon Hurricane' poster on the screen, so that's cool he pointed at that.

I fly back to China tomorrow, but will never forget the gig, and will never forget how cool this city and the people are. What a massively brilliant few days.

“How could people get so unkind?” At this particular landing zone of the alchemical psychedelic mothership, I was riding the Holy Rail stage left. Like Mr. Leighton writes, emotions ruled and rolled. The prayer in Love and Only Love, “Spirit come back to me, Give me strength and set me free, Let me hear the magic in my heart” was like the full moon pulling all of that water around inside my head until it was leaking out of my eyes. Ideally, perhaps, the venue at Mercedesstraße 69 would have a retractable roof so that we could all cool off and the moon could play along, but Luna was a definite session player in the proceedings. It the only date on the European leg coinciding with a full moon (see the moon icons on http://www.neilyoung.com/tour.html), and the Horse was on stage maybe an hour and a half after the exact full moon moment (19:16 at UTC +1). Those heavy tides resulted in yet more anonymous rantings above, matched in comedy by the staged Alchemy road eye fights, and the emotional weight of countless sublime moments.

Considering it was 22 July in the middle of a German heatwave, it did appear that we were involved in a sweaty summer rock concert. That may have been a factor for a woman also clutching an unholy break in the rail who got overwhelmed with boozy consequences midway through Hurricane, or maybe it was her gut reaction to the deliciously heinous bass frequencies from Poncho’s tie-dyed suspended Danger Bird organ rig. The hairs on my arms and my internal organs were surging in the unparalleled deep bass waves. The onstage stacks produced a massive range of sounds and the clarity and intensity of the vocals revealed so much undiscovered poetry. At the Berlin show that opened the European tour, these new lyrics eluded me: “The tracks ahead were long and straight, We were riding on a desert wind, We were pulling in the spiritual, Riding on the desert wind…” But last night, Neil as the gunslinger led the Crazy Horse ka-tet through to the spiritually shining lights. The poetic imagery of his storytelling shone through, and he connected directly with so many of us. Mr. Reindl’s Full Moon Hurricane definitely happened.

As in so many shows this tour, they connected with each other in joyful ways, like Billy sharing an intimate laugh with Neil after Surfer Joe or Neil reaching out and holding onto Ralph after his long walk around the stacks from the drum kit for the final bow. At the piano bench, Neil may have had to ask, “Can someone turn off that fan? It’s louder than I am,” but I don’t think anyone other than Anonymous Number Two can say that they didn’t enjoy themselves. I’ve never felt closer to these guys, their music, or myself as a soul lurching and dancing around on this hot spinning planet than I did last night.

Not everybody but gets satisfaction from a given concert - it kind of depends on the rock 'n roll libido of the individual person, that's life - eat a peach! For me, standing at the rail just in front of the middle of the stage Stuttgart was great. Malte